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Anti-Abortion Billboard is Removed

By Liz Robbins February 24, 2011 6:20 pmFebruary 24, 2011 6:20 pm

Updated Feb. 25, 1:19 p.m. |The outdoor advertising company that put up a controversial billboard sponsored by a group opposing abortion decided to remove it on Thursday because employees in the Mexican restaurant below the sign were harassed by people angered by the billboard’s message, the company said.

“It’s down, or at least it should be coming down soon,” Peter Costanza, the general manager of Lamar Advertising New York, said in a telephone interview on Thursday. “Why did I take it down? Yesterday, somebody came into the restaurant harassing the waiters and waitresses. I don’t want any violence to happen around the buildings there.”

On Friday, Mr. Costanza said the billboard had been removed Thursday night.

A woman who answered the phone at Lupe’s East L.A. Kitchen, the Mexican restaurant beneath the billboard, on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Watts Street, said restaurant staff members were too busy for her to comment on the situation, and she would not confirm that any employees had been harassed. The restaurant, she said, has no affiliation with Lamar Advertising or the group opposing abortion.

“It wasn’t about politics,” Mr. Costanza said, adding that it was more about safety.

The anti-abortion group, Life Always, which is based in Texas, had a news conference in Manhattan on Wednesday to discuss the opening of an advertising campaign intended to reach black women. The billboard, located a half-mile from a Planned Parenthood center in SoHo, showed a young black girl in a pink dress and the words “the most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb.”

The campaign, according to leaders of Life Always and New York church leaders opposing abortion who attended the news conference, was in response to the high rate of abortions in New York City, particularly among black women. A recent report by the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said that the abortion rate in 2009 was 41 percent. The rate among black women was 59.8 percent.

Life Always officials likened abortion to genocide, and those comments, coupled with the billboard, enraged city officials.

Bill de Blasio, the city’s public advocate, on Wednesday called for the billboard’s immediate removal. Christine C. Quinn, speaker of the City Council, issued a statement saying: “To refer to a woman’s legal right to an abortion as a ‘genocidal plot’ is not only absurd, but it is offensive to women and to communities of color.”

Letitia James, a City Council member who represents parts of Brooklyn, said she was outraged that Life Always members had said they decided to post the billboard to coincide with Black History Month. Ms. James said she had talked to concerned citizens throughout the day and night on Wednesday, and she directed her staff to start an online petition. Ms. James said she asked MoveOn, the liberal activist group, to post the petition. It went online around 10 a.m. on Thursday, and included Mr. Costanza’s name.

In addition, the Women of Color Policy Network, a research and policy institute at New York University, wrote a letter to Mr. Costanza on Thursday. In a statement, the institute said it had received confirmation from Mr. Costanza that the billboard would be taken down.

Mr. Costanza said he was not inundated by phone calls or e-mails pleading for the billboard’s removal. The billboard, 29 feet high and 16 feet wide, was erected on Feb. 18, and it had been scheduled to be up for at least three weeks, the Rev. Stephen Broden, the founder of Life Always, said on Wednesday.

Hal Kilshaw, a spokesman for Lamar Advertising, said that the advertisement had complied with the company’s policy. “It’s our belief that people have a right to express their message,” he said, adding that advertisers must have a disclaimer saying who is sponsoring the message.

“We would have left it up,” he added. “But Peter has become concerned because the wait staff in the restaurant below was harassed by people who objected to the message. There were talks about a protest tomorrow, and he was worried about their safety.”

Ms. James said that before Lamar had decided to pull the ad, she had planned to hold a news conference with the Rev. Al Sharpton on Friday under the billboard.

In a statement, Life Always said it “strongly disagrees with Lamar Outdoor’s decision to remove the billboard in SoHo, but the billboard’s message holds true, and truth has a place in the public square. The intent of the board is to call attention to the tragedy and the truth that abortion is outpacing life in the black community.”

The Rev. Michel Faulkner of the New Horizon Church in Harlem, who attended the Wednesday news conference with Life Always, said in the same statement:

“While this billboard causes a visceral reaction from many African-Americans, it addresses a stubborn truth that 60 percent of black babies do not make it out of the womb. We must do something now.

“Instead of challenging the design of the ad, we should ask why the message is true and how can we change the fact that the leading cause of death for African-Americans is abortion.”

City officials voiced relief over the billboard’s removal.

“We won!” Ms. James said.

Mr. de Blasio, in a statement, said: “In the few short days since this billboard was put up, countless New Yorkers responded with collective revulsion to the divisive and ugly nature of its message.”

Joan Malin, the president of Planned Parenthood of New York City, said in a statement that the organization was “pleased that Lamar Advertising has heard the voices of thousands of New Yorkers.”

An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that the billboard went up on Tuesday. It was erected on Friday, Feb. 18.

I guess in NYC it is ok to stifle “freedom of speech” if you don’t like the speech. I wonder what the response would be if a pro-abortion billboard was taken down? I guess that was a tupid question since I know the answer.

You speak about the right to abortion, which was given by an interpretation of the right to privacy in court.

Where is the right to free speech that’s clearly written out in the Bill of Rights?

I sincerely hope there’s a case against you for your actions in denying the rights of people.

In before inevitable hate-spewing:
Their billboard did not deny the right to abortion, just suggested that certain groups were targeting certain racial and ethnic groups for abortion. You actually came out and worked to forcibly deny federal rights to an organization.

Not being the least of this event having the child model
who was used by this anti-abortion group never
knew about her image being used and was not given
any compensation.
What a disaster and yes, let’s keep abortion safe and
legal for women.

I’m no abortion foe, but harassing people (the wrong targets notwithstanding) because of the billboard is just as bad as those pro-lifers protesting outside abortion clinics.
If you don’t like the message, don’t look.

As noisy and obnoxious as I was in blogging about this billboard earlier, I think it’s appalling that some numbskulls threatened workers in the restaurant downstairs (if that did actually happen). Debate against this anti-abortion nonsense, hold protests, donate money to opposing groups, but violence does not make one’s point. I always thought violence, the last resort of the incompetent, was an anti-abortion movement tactic. And any action against people who just happened to work in the building the billboard is on, is flat out stupid.

Frankly, the world would have been better off if such violent-minded thugs had been abortions instead.

Dear Liz
How come your article only has people who object to the billboard. Is this NYT journalism. The truth hurts. The fact is the NYC is the abortion capitol of the USA and 59 percent of the abortion are African Americans and that Planned Parenthood target that community
It good back to Margaret Sanger who founded Planned Parenthood..
Regards
Neil

The bankrupt fascist right wing only wants to divide this country with outrageous statements and schemes. It never ends. They are traitors to everything great about America that I first came to believe when I was a kid.

Such hypocrites, these so-called liberals. It’s okay to liken Bush or the governor of Wisconsin to Hitler. But say something that makes the pro-abortion crowd uncomfortable, and suddenly civil liberties ain’t so important.

The speech that makes us most uncomfortable is the speech most deserving of constitutional protection.

How can those figures possibly be right (41% and 59.8%). Clearly there is not adequate access to inexpensive birth control and family planning counseling in this city. I support the right to abortion, but I also question what is going on in this city that the rate of unintended pregnancy would be that high!

If Life Always really wanted to do something about high abortion rates they might better spend their funds to make contraceptives and good reproductive health care more available to ALL women. Or they might offer real support for women who chose to continue their pregnancies… but something makes me think that this isn’t part of their agenda.

As a liberal, pro-choice Democrat and a supporter of Bill de Blasio in the last election, may I say to Letitia James, Bill de Blasio, Christine Quinn, et al: No, you lost!

No matter how divisive you think the message may have been, the anti-abortion group had a legal and constitutional right to rent the space and place the message. It’s a shame to see people I respected turning into parodies of knee-jerk liberals who will support any message, but only if it agrees with their own.

You did no favors for free speech today ladies and gentlemen. And the fact that you are all patting each other on the back is troublesome.

What this Texas company is doing is not an exercise of free speech but simple harassment of women, an it should not be allowed. And given the history of confederate support, then lynchings, and today the institutionalized murder of African Americans by the state of Texas, they’ve got a lot of nerve using Black History Month to target women in New York.

Brava, Letitia James. And as for “holy men” like the Reverend Michel Faulkner, with all the poverty and injustice out there, is persecuting women really the best you can do? What about poverty, homelessness and joblessness? Not interested? Why not?

The Reverend Faulkner seems focused on saying that the “stubborn truth” is that “60 percent of black babies do not make it out of the womb.” What should concern Rev. Faulkner more is that more than 60 percent of black children who are born need a great deal of help and support from a community that is not responsive enough to their needs. I still cannot fathom how people who work themselves up over a fetus don’t seem to give a nanosecond’s notice to the children who are already here and in need—of better education, more encouragement to stay in school, opportunities for work. Reverend Faulkner, look around your neighborhoods and get to work on helping those children around you before they join gangs, drop out of school and become out of reach of anyone.

So….. if all of those women were using birth control and had not gotten pregnant, hence no abortion needed, would these church leaders still be upset? If so, why? Is it not enough to prevent all of these so-called “murders” through responsible use of contraception? Or is there something else going on? There is nothing more cynical than social conservatives using shock messages to exploit people’s emotions and distort conversation over serious issues such as these. We need to get rid of the circumstances that cause abortion to be so prevalent in some communities. To fight instead against abortion is to deceive yourself and harm others as well.

want to know what needs to be done to lower abortion rates? Put proper sex education in public school. The reason so many young people are getting pregnant and having abortions is because there are too many that aren’t taught safe sex and have unprotected sex while relying on myths.

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